The supposed right of intolerance is absurd and barbaric. It is the right of the tiger; nay, it is far worse, for tigers do but tear in order to have food, while we rend each other for paragraphs.

Faith consists in believing what reason cannot.

You despise books; you whose lives are absorbed in the vanities of ambition, the pursuit of pleasure or indolence; but remember that all the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed by books.

The ancients recommended us to sacrifice to the Graces, but Milton sacrificed to the Devil.

I have lived eighty years of life and know nothing for it, but to be resigned and tell myself that flies are born to be eaten by spiders and man to be devoured by sorrow.

Poetry is the music of the soul, and, above all, of great and feeling souls.

Since the whole affair had become one of religion, the vanquished were of course exterminated.